


Missing

by UnabashedlyLoudNacho



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Afterlife, Canonical Character Death, Character Death, Healing, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:22:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26111080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnabashedlyLoudNacho/pseuds/UnabashedlyLoudNacho
Summary: Severus wakes up after he died in the Whomping Willow, there awaits him an old man with a hard choice.Aka - Severus and Dumbledore have a conversation
Relationships: Lily Evans Potter/Severus Snape
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17





	Missing

**Author's Note:**

> Why do I find Severus so interesting?

Something was missing.

Severus kept his eyes closed as he patted himself down, but his hands found nothing amiss.

But something was most assuredly missing.

He drew a deep breath. The smell of freshly cut grass tickled his nose and he just managed to hold back a sneeze.

Severus sat up slowly, still not quite daring to open his eyes.

“Where are we, Severus?”

His eyes flew open when he heard the voice of the man standing beside him. But he didn’t dare look. He had gone insane.

The person sat down slowly beside him, reaching out a small bag towards him.

“Have a lemondrop.”

When Severus just starred at the proffered bag of sweets the man gave up and let his hand drop. Only then did Severus register where he was. There were swings a few feet away from him that moved slightly in the breeze. Close by was also a rosebush that appeared untouched by time. Only the discipline he had kept himself under all these years kept him from gaping when he put two and two together.

“Cokeworth?!” he spat out incredulously, spinning around to look at the old man sitting next to him.

“Ah, interesting,” Dumbledore said, as if Severus had merely been answering his question. Then he popped a lemondrop in his mouth and sucked on it soundly.

Severus wanted to throttle the man.

But then he remembered.

“You are dead,” he whispered.

“Indeed.”

“I’m dead.”

“Unfortunately, my dear boy,” Dumbledore said, hanging his head in regret.

Severus looked around, taking in his surroundings.

“I guess this is hell then,” he said, without much feeling.

“No.”

“Well, please tell me this old playground in Cokeworth isn’t heaven,” Severus said, sneering.

Dumbledore let out a roaring laughter.

“No Severus, that it certainly is not,” Dumbledore said, wiping tears of mirth from his cheeks. Severus found none of this funny.

“Are you trying to be difficult on purpose or are you going to explain to be where we bloody well are and why,” Severus hissed.

“First I want to apologize,” Dumbledore said, a sad look replacing his smile. “I have used you and abused you just like everyone else in your life. Well, everyone except Lily.”

Severus watched the swings and could almost see young Lily Evans flying out of them, laughing.

“Cokeworth you say,” Dumbledore mused. “This place has something to do with her?”

“Yes,” Severus whispered. Dumbledore raised an eyebrow, waiting for further explanation. “She used to play here, as a child, with her horrendous sister.”

“This is where you met,” Dumbledore stated, his face illuminated with understanding. “That makes sense.”

Severus sighed. “If I’m dead, can’t I just go into oblivion, or is my punishment having an inane discussion with you for eternity?”

Dumbledore laughed again, which normally would have made Severus boil with anger, but for some reason it didn’t.

“As much as I enjoy our conversations, dear Severus, I am sure you have had enough of them for a lifetime.” Dumbledore sighed. “When we die our first stop is a place that means something great to us, usually a stepping stone; a place where something happened that changed our lives to the better.” Dumbledore gestured around them. “Here you met the first person who valued your company, and possibly the only person who ever valued you for who you are, and for that I am sorry.”

Severus stayed silent, internalizing everything the older man was telling him.

“You want to know where I woke up?” Dumbledore asked, then kept going without pausing. “There is this shop in Wizarding Copenhagen, on this shopping street called Cirkel, that sells only the highest quality socks! When I went there as a young man, before I became a teacher at Hogwarts, I swear it changed my life! And since then, I have never worn anything other than Magiske Soks socks!”

Severus let Dumbledore drone on about his amazing socks for a while, dimly remembering the name on the wrappings of all the socks Dumbledore had gifted him through the years.

“And now what?” Severus asked as Dumbledore stopped to inhale in the middle of a story on how the Minister of Magic at the time offered to resign and hand his post over to Dumbledore after receiving a pair of Magiske Soks as a present, if only Dumbledore would divulge the name and place of the sock shop.

“Oh, yes, of course,” Severus could see that it took some effort on Dumbledore’s part to restrain himself from finishing his story. “This, in essence, is where you decide what to do in The After.”

“And your choice was to welcome all your students into ‘The After’,” Severus snorted.

“No, m’boy, only the special ones.”

Severus closed his mouth on a retort he had been ready to make.

“There are many options, I am fairly certain you will not want to become a ghost…”

Severus snorted. “Because my existence on earth was so great that I want to relive it, for an eternity.”

“Of course there is the option of eternal rest, which no one would blame you for choosing.”

Resting did sound good, being nothing sounded really quite good.

“You are holding something back,” Severus noted when Dumbledore didn’t keep talking. He knew Dumbledore well enough to know that he was saving the hardest choice for last.

“Or you can go on.”

Severus waited for a further explanation. But none came.

“On?! What in the Bloody Baron’s knickers is that supposed to mean?” Severus was surprised when he realized that despite their vague conversation thus far, this was the first time he got properly irritated with the older man. Usually he would be furious, storming away screaming expletives after such an unproductive conversation with the old codger.

“Well, it is very difficult to explain, but what you might most want to know about The After is that there you will meet, well, people,” Dumbledore said calmly.

“And why would I w…” Severus stopped and almost gasped. “Lily.”

“Well, yes, she is certainly one of the people…”

“Of course that is what I choose,” Severus said, getting up and dusting imaginary grass and dirt of his robes. “Where do we go?”

Dumbledore smiled indulgently, as if talking to one of his first years. He got up, quite easily for someone so old, and placed a hand on Severus’ shoulder.

“Severus, you have to realise, that while you have certainly made great sacrifices for her, and kept her son out of harm’s way…” Dumbledore hesitated.

“She doesn’t want to see me,” Severus said, feeling numb.

“Yes! Yes she does,” Dumbledore said, smiling kindly. “But remember, she may be the great love of your life, but she already has hers.”

Severus sagged, sitting down on the grass again. “I’ll just take the void.”

Dumbledore sat beside him and patted his knee. “Come now, that is much too dramatic. I know for a fact that she would like to meet you, and even her husband has some things he would like to say to you…”

“There is only one person I have any desire to meet with in any kind of afterlife… well, two, but I have already met the other. Being stuck in a place where I would have to watch her with _him_ for an eternity seems more like the fabled hell of muggle legend than anything nice, or good.”

“Close your eyes,” Dumbledore said, looking at Severus thoughtfully. Severus almost snarled at him but decided to go with what the man said instead. “Look inward, the first thought you had when you awoke here was that something was missing.”

Severus arched an eyebrow, but was too used to the older man’s antics to question his knowledge.

“The thing that is missing is not something tangible,” Dumbledore explained. “It is something within you.”

Severus tried to focus and tune everything out. He thought distantly of his last moments alive, about Potter Jr. running to him where he was close to death in the Whomping Willow, he also thought further back, about his fight with McGonagall, about his year of trying to keep all of the students more or less safe, despite all their work to the contrary…

“Anything?” Dumbledore asked.

And then he thought of his parents, and his school years, and his years of teaching… and suddenly he realised what Dumbledore was trying to say.

“The thing that is missing is something that has been a part of me for longer than I can possibly remember,” Severus said slowly, opening his eyes only to look straight into twinkling blue ones. “It is this turmoil, this combination of fear and anger and resentment that had fuelled many of my decisions for most of my life…” He realised that this black, angry part that had always been in him had subsided to a low hum. It was still there, but it was subdued, and for the first time since he could remember he felt like he could breathe.

“I am not angry.”

Dumbledore smiled a smile much too bright for anyone over the age of five.

“The thing about The After, is that it doesn’t change us, but it lets us heal, it lets us become something we were always meant to be.”

“But what is the point, to get to become something great if we are dead?” Severus asked.

Dumbledore smiled even brighter, if that was possible. “Does there have to be a point? Can’t happiness exist for its own sake?”

Severus sighed and stood up, bracing himself.

“Alright, how does this work?”

**Author's Note:**

> Don't know what this is, but hopefully it entertained someone.  
> Kudos, comments and such always appreciated.


End file.
